


no sky to look up to, now

by watchtheleaves



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Angst, Avengers AU, Character Death, Gen, Infinity War AU, Iron Man!Jack, i am... so sorry, spidey!race
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:08:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24609700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watchtheleaves/pseuds/watchtheleaves
Summary: “Um, J—Jack?”No.His heart stopped. His mind went blank.Not him. God, anyone but him.
Relationships: Albert DaSilva/Racetrack Higgins (mentioned), David Jacobs/Jack Kelly (mentioned), Racetrack Higgins & Jack Kelly
Comments: 11
Kudos: 48





	no sky to look up to, now

**Author's Note:**

> i’m so, so sorry.
> 
> (i woke up with this idea and couldn’t not write it)

There had been a number of times in Jack’s life in which he found the world to be crumbling down in front of him. It was so often so, that Jack even questioned—many times in his day—if it truly was his calling to be one of Earth’s Avengers. To be her savior, Jack really did seem to watch it walk on the tightrope dangerously often.

It was like a plant lover with a black thumb, his job. He loved the Earth and his one duty was to keep it safe. So, why couldn’t he stop it from dying— _ all  _ the time?

There came good things with his job. He had Davey, back at home, worried sick every other day when he had to cancel dinner plans to fight giants or robots or superpowered lunatics, but still loving him regardless and with his whole heart and brain. He had Katherine, his best friend in the world, and the most badass person he knew. He had paired up a rather decent group of, well, superpowered lunatics—but lunatics who meant well. He had Spot, Crutchie, Romeo, Finch… 

He had Race. And the precise reason  _ why  _ that kid had arrived to his building wearing tights and shooting webs was unknown to that very day, but it had changed him forever.

Jack wasn’t hard or cold—he didn’t like to think he was, at least. But he’d seen too much of the dark side of the world to have a smile on his face every minute of every hour.

If anything, Jack was hopeless. And Race—he gathered all the hope, all the light. For a kid with a life so tragic, it was mesmerizing how much he loved the world.

And hell, if Jack didn’t love that kid.

Despite the guilt of giving him gear and weapons, Jack was no idiot. Race had been fighting crime in Manhattan in his pajamas and his impressively manufactured web-shooting technology, and if anything, he’d been in more danger then than after meeting Jack and getting his first real suit.

The Spider-Man was a good man. He was a hero, a vigilante, a friend of the neighborhood.

Race, on the other side, was a sixteen-year-old kid from Manhattan with a 4.0 GPA and maybe two friends. He lived with his foster mother and collected computers. He was a boy, not a man. He was Davey and Jack’s intern and a trainee scientist.

He was many things before being Spider-Man, and Jack didn’t know if he envied that or he feared it.

Jack knew Race had always dreamed of space. Studying it, going there, learning from it. Jack had met the famous Albert DaSilva, Race’s best friend and  _ guy in the chair. _ He knew that the two dreamed of everything together—even of each other.

Race and Albert shared a love for the stars and the clouds. Jack had caught talking to them about constellations many afternoons.

Now, Jack had dragged Race to space. Or, rather, he hadn’t tried harder to keep him on Earth.

He knew Race thought about Albert as the ship had its forced landed. He knew, because he was thinking of Davey.

Things faced good fate for a moment. The newly assembled team of space wanderers had its chance against the big and evil Thanos. In more than one chance, Jack looked at Race, mid-fight, and his pride clouded his fear.

They had a chance, a good one. Until they didn’t.

All things happened for a reason, or so Jack learned to believe. It was what he needed to hold onto through a life of watching scenes of despair and catastrophe. It calmed the guilt—it meant to do so, at least.

The air shifted, heavy and carrying orange dust from the planet long-dead where they sat and waited. Something was wrong.

Jack realized that he hadn’t learned most of the wanderer’s names, even after fighting among them. It was a force of habit—not getting attached to anything or anyone. Not giving life the opportunity to take something else from him.

When the wanderers started to dust, his mind started to race. He was smart, hell, he was one smart guy, and he had no idea what was happening.

One of them. Then, two. Three. Fear settled on the lower area of his stomach, wrenching. He felt sick and pale.

Was he next? Was the possibility of his death worse than the possibility of staying alive? Was he hallucinating, already in death? Was everything he was seeing just some big, ugly prank from the Universe?

There was one name he knew in that planet.

“Um, J—Jack?”

_ No. _

His heart stopped. His mind went blank.

_ Not him. God, anyone but him. _

Jack turned around slowly. The fear in the face he faced made his knees weaken and his eyes turn dark. “Tone?”

“I—uh—I don’t feel so good.”

_ No, no, no, no, no— _

“You’re okay,” Jack rushed to him as Race stumbled forward. He had his hands in front of him, shaking, and Jack begged to be wrong. Jack begged to wake up.

Race looked up at him and tears formed in his eyes—his face was tense, horrified, and he didn’t want to cry.

His kid was smart. Smarter than him. He knew.

“I don’t—I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t know—“ he cried, falling forward when his harmed ankle gave in.

Upon catching him, Jack willed his hold to be firm, steady, as he kneeled on the ground with Race in arms. He made him lie down slowly, head cradled on his hand, as Race grasped onto him desperately.

A tear ran down his face and left a clean trail between the dirt and blood.

The usually blue eyes Jack had always found looking up at him trained bruises and fear. But how much of a hit Race had taken until now wasn’t Jack’s biggest worry.

Race was  _ not _ dying on him.

His eyes snapped back to cruel reality when a drowned sob stabbed his chest.

“I don’t wanna go—I don’t—Jack,  _ please, _ I don’t wanna go,” the kid cried. And there was nothing Jack could do, nothing Jack could say.

The sky wasn’t even blue and beautiful in that planet. Maybe it had been, once. But now, Race didn’t have any stars or clouds to gaze into for one last time.

He listened to his attempt to inhale. He was fading from his fingers—literally, fading away.

Jack looked at Race, and he was so young.

It didn’t hit him until then that he wasn’t dying. That almost everyone in that hell of a stranded planet had died around him, but he wasn’t turning to dust and tears.

He was alive and in a blink, Race wasn’t.

“I’m  _ sorry, _ ” the boy whispered.

And he was gone.

The silence was deafening. Jack knew there was one wanderer remaining on that planet with him, but he didn’t feel guilty to not care—about them, about himself.

He was stranded in a forgotten planet. Earth was far—Jack didn’t even know if anything remained there.

A shiver ran through his spine as he looked down at his hand and found dust. Dirty, painful dust.

Jack closed his eyes.

Of all things, Race had been sorry last. And Jack bit his lip to not scream, yell, punch the air.

Antonio Higgins was the best kid he’d ever gotten to know in a long life of meeting people. He was smart as he was funny and he was good as he was honest and kind. He was talented, he had a gift with technology. He wanted to be an astronaut.

He looked at the orange sky. The air felt toxic. He felt sick.

With one last look at his dusty hand, he cried.

“God,” he said—yelled. His broken voice echoed in the near emptiness of the space around him. “No, Tony.  _ I’m _ sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

And no one could hear him scream.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah.
> 
> @newsieslive on twitter if you wanna yell at me for this. or the comment section, too. i’m soooorryyyyy


End file.
